Darrell Markewitz is a professional blacksmith who specializes in the Viking Age. He designed the living History program for L'Anse aux Meadows NHSC (Parks Canada) and worked on a number of major international exhibits. A recent passion is experimental iron smelting.
'Hammered Out Bits' focuses primarily on IRON and the VIKING AGE

Monday, December 30, 2013

I am doing some research into folding knives from the early medieval period.

So far I have tracked down a few of examples:

York find 13816 - Folding knife from Fishergate, York. - Late 14th Century
London find 309 - Folding knife from London (currently held in Museum of London) - Late 13th Century.
London find 310 - 14th Century.

Does anybody now of any other examples of Folding Knife finds, ideally from the 11th-13th Centuries in the UK/Western Europe?

This is a 'folding' knife, but in this case more of a swivel to
present one of two cutting edges. I have made replicas of this blade
several times, and the combination of short straight and longer slightly
curved has proved excellent for small scale wood or antler carving.

You suggested 'early medieval' - this knife is from the Viking Age in England.
I have a copy of the almost impossible to find 'Viking Artifacts' and
have included a direct scan of the images and related text.

I have seen a couple of folding blades that have a long stem that
extends the line of the back of the knife. There is a pivot at the base
of the blade. This allows you to fold the blade out of the handle,
holding down the stem with your thumb to hold it in the open position.
One had a wood / antler handle, one had a folded metal handle. Not sure
if I have images (or specific details).

Attached Images

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

I'm trying to set up the next person in the series. Might be a bit delayed considering the time of year!

I really did not get much of a chance to wax poetic about bladesmithing,
so in the mean time, I thought I would shove in some past pieces with
short comments. Mainly trying to use work that illustrate specific
concepts or lessons.

I have always been most interested in the variations in patterning
caused by the effect of the hand hammer on a layered steel billet.
Creating random, rather than the regular and geometric, lines. My deep
interest in Nordic artifact and design aside, the twisted diagonals of
multiple core rods create lines that I find most desirable. (I certainly
do appreciate the degree of control and precision required in Middle
Eastern styles, they just do not appeal to me aesthetically.)

Years back, I had seen some artifact samples of one piece kitchen knives
from Roman England in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum in
Toronto. Add to this that I am not that interested in the jewellery like
work demanded by ornamental hilting. I consider a good functional knife
should have a heavy weight tang, which means covering over a big chunk
of layered materials.

Put all these design concepts together, and what resulted was a series
of one piece knives, many intended as heavy kitchen knives.

I had been making a lot of pattern welded knives into the 1980's and
90's - with good success with the welds. In arrogance, I thought I was
able to move to sword sized lengths. To double the presumption, I
accepted a commission for a 2/3 scale version of the Sutton Hoo sword.
(eight *complex* twisted cores with 150 layer edges)
Wrong, wrong, and wrong.
Six weeks of work to the quench. A sharp crack.
I ended up with an eight inch knife.

Oh - by the way:
Don't attempt to do long complex welds in an unheated shop - in what turned out to be the coldest winter here in 150 years...

Layered steels certainly look great, but straight carbon steel will give
a much better *working* edge. My personal approach is to make the back
half of the blade of twisted rods, and the edge side of two layered
slabs with a solid carbon steel core. The two separate pieces then are
welded together to make the starting billet. This maybe adds an extra
step, but I think gives a better *functioning* blade.

I
know I have been strongly influenced by the work and concepts of Lee
Sauder. A bit of the similarity of approach may also lie with our shared
feeling about to the whole 'art and mystery' of bloomery iron.
I also think that the raw and fractured edges of a parent bloom are an important part of the intrinsic nature of the material.
I
have far more raw blooms than consolidated billets, fewer still are the
billets that have been worked into objects. Most of the completed
objects so far have been simple historic based pieces.

I
am quite torn right now on this - how best to utilize my iron blooms.
Refining this material, so massively difficult to create, down to
perfectly consistent working bars, seems pointless to me (Sorry to some
of my research partners and friends reading). The intrinsic quality of
bloomery iron is hidden in that perfection.
Sad truth is that
within blacksmithing overall, the single best way to turn the effort of
all our work is through creating highly ornamented knives. I'm still
struggling with all this - the best way to turn the unique qualities of
bloomery iron into decorative objects that can both reflect their unique
origin, but also command the $$ value that would attempt to provide for
all that specialized work.

I hope everyone, with all our different personal paths, are able to
finally put up the hammer for a couple of days, and sit back with a
beverage of choice. Try to reflect on just how much you have actually
*done*, not just the long list of what still remains to be tackled. (And
boy, I wish I could be better at taking my *own* advice!)

Saturday, December 21, 2013

One major point : this represents late Medieval iron production - the use of a large blast furnace to convert iron to a high carbon cast iron. This is a two set process (as illustrated), with the resulting ingots needing a second carbon *reduction* phase to convert the material to a lower carbon wrought iron which can be forged (hammered).

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Shel, on 15 Dec 2013 - 13:17, said:So,
one last question Darrell. Was all of this, in your thoughts, much as
was the iron making efforts at Jamestown, an expedition looking for
useful resources?

To keep to the question (at least to start...)

A larger consideration of just what Leif Eirikson was attempting with
his voyage(s) is critical to placing the whole Vinland adventure into a
meaningful context.
His father, Eirik the Red, was described in the Sagas as first
exploring, then organizing and establishing the *successful* Greenland
colony : 'So he could be chieftain, and then himself be the one who
decided who would be banished or not'. Remember that Eirik was called
'the Red' for his considerable violent temper, which had lead to
'killings' in both Norway, then Iceland, resulting in banishment from
both.
Leif would have been a younger man on both these moves (Norway / Iceland
/ Greenland), and certainly serving as a second in command for the
Greenland exploration and later colony establishment. The Greenland
Norse certainly knew that there was territory to the west, unexplored
but certainly glimpsed by travelers storm tossed on Iceland to Greenland
voyages. The Saga tales certainly paint a picture of a family well
known for exaggerate, bold in action, and seeking to establish their
fame (and power). It would be perfectly natural for Leif to want to
explore and place his hand print on new lands - and perhaps be just a
wee bit 'generous' in his descriptions.
First thing to remember is that 'Vinland' is a *region* - not a single
isolated place. When Leif speaks of his 'Land of Vines', he is in
reality speaking of the entire modern Gulf of St Lawrence area of
Canada. Newfoundland, the North Shore of Quebec, NE shore of New
Brunswick. This last is proven by the find of three butternuts at LAM, a
tree that has never grown further north than modern day New Brunswick.
Significantly, wild grapes also are found in the same areas (grapes have
never grown in Newfoundland).
The comparison here would be L'Anse aux Meadows is to Vinland as Jamestown would be to greater Virginia.

Unlike Jamestown, Leif never attempted to colonize Vinland, and 'Leif's Houses' at L'Anse aux Meadows is not a colony.
The correct way to think of the place is as an outpost, a combination
exploration base and lumber camp. Although there are hints in the Sagas
that a farm settlement might have been attempted, the truth is that the
young Greenland colony still had good land available, and itself was too
small a population to support the effort needed.
Although the climate in Greenland (and throughout Northern Europe) was
warmer in the Viking Age and Early Medieval periods, there was never any
supply of timber on Greenland itself. Timber was needed to build houses
in the Norse longhouse style, and also for ship construction. It has
been demonstrated via dendrochronology that many of the building timbers
used in Greenland over its 400 year active Norse occupation were in
fact cut in what was called Markland (modern day Labrador)

Part of the set of Norse shipbuilding tools I made for LAM in 2008 (Blog Posting)

Unlike
Jamestown, Leif's Vinland explorations were never intended as a
commercial venture. The mechanic is more likely that individuals would
have taken part on the voyages, trading their labour against a share of
the actual logs harvested. Back to Greenland, they would then be able to
build houses on their own farm holdings for growing families.

As with Jamestown, it is most likely (and my opinion, now shared by Dr Wallace) that the single iron smelt at LAM represents a resource test.
A factor to consider is that although there is primary bog iron ore on
Greenland, there is no wood suitable to generate the large volumes of
charcoal required for bloomery iron smelting . Iron objects would remain
one of the primary imports into Greenland for the entire life of the
settlement.
It would be natural for Leif, eager to brag about the excellent
qualities of his discovered lands, would want to add 'everything to make
good iron' to the list. The fact that iron was *not* included to the
list of : timber, fish, grain, grapes may be more significant.

Before the 2010 demonstration smelt - inside the reconstruction of the 'Furnace Hut' at LAM

The
Norse at Greenland did go to the (considerable) effort of building a
dedicated structure to house the iron smelting effort. The
archaeologists kind of glossed over this labour, with a kind of 'of
course they would do so'. Truth is that the weather at LAM is not *that*
foul, and our own experience has certainly proven you can build a small
bloomery furnace one day, then fire it the next. Couple this with the
small amount of physical remains certainly suggesting only one smelt
attempt was undertaken. Perhaps they had fully intended more production,
but that first attempt was so marginal that they never duplicated the
effort? Some things we can never really know.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

I'm going to take this chance to stick in a bit of impression / interpretation / personal direction. (Promise I will address Shel's actual question next)

There are some radically different situations that did exist that in turn have marked the work of ancient and historic bladesmiths in comparison to we modern practitioners.
Although at core the basic dynamics of fire, metal and hammer remain the same for all workers at all times and all locations, there are many changes in form and detail into our modern age.

During the Saxon and Viking Age (so Northern Europe, say 600 - 1000 AD) the framework was this:

- Anvils were small. Typically 10 x 10 cm blocks (4 x 4 inches). The largest artifact found is from Novgrod, Russia, at only 15 kg (so 33 lbs).
The assumption has always been rough forging was done on large stone blocks. I personally am not convinced of this, after trying just that a few times. I had a two versions of the Novgrod anvil made up. The one I kept is mounted into a maple wood stubb that itself weighs about 75 lbs and allows me to work from standing. The stability comes from the stubb, not the anvil.
This most certainly changes the working ability, the complexity, of forging larger masses (axes) or longer objects (swords). I freely admit I personally have never attempted creating either using all VA equipment. I have forged any number of artifact sized knives quite effectively (typical seax blade is about 10 cm long btw).

- Forges are small. A side blast using charcoal, the fuel piled against a stone block to protect the bellows. Although this arrangement certainly can get hot enough for forge welding, the ball of heat is about 10 - 15 cm (4 - 6 inches) at maximum. In my (admittedly somewhat limited) experience, the challenge is keeping those temperatures up as the charcoal is so quickly consumed.
There is still a question to be examined in closer detail about how forges and anvils were positioned - and how this defines work stance. Stance will certainly effect work - how shapes might have been generated, ease of hammering, what kind of accessory tools might have been employed.
(Note to any looking for a PhD topic - it turns out that the bones of marked smith's graves, via the tools, have never been examined for stress / damage marks. There is a story about interface with archaeologists there, please cite me if you do a thesis.)

- Bellows are small. I have built a number of reconstructions based on the only references available from the VA itself. There are only two illustrations, no artifacts themselves survive (be so happy to be corrected on that!). There is the side view of working smith and forge on a wood carving from Norway. There is a top down view on a rune stone carving. Using the suggested sizes and proportions, the delivery volumes on the reconstructions are in the range of 120 to 130 litres per minute. This volume is perfectly fine for general blacksmithing using those same forges. (*) It is however almost an order of magnitude *less* than the air produced by the 'great bellows' system most of us are more familiar with.

- Source iron was inconsistent (!). This might be one of the biggest differences between Industrial Age, much less Modern, materials. The general progress through time in Europe is the development of smelting / bar production methods that were able to make larger volumes of more consistent quality metal (also with increasing efficiencies - thus at ever lower unit cost).
How easy was it to even access any carbon alloy iron?
I suspect 'standard' working practices of the Age might be as much a reflection of the random nature of every starting piece of metal, as anything else. Would you even be able to develop a normal method of heat treating - if every single piece of starting metal was completely different in texture and relative hardness?

One of the things that Ric Furrer's work has pointed out is that just what 'material processing' knowledge might have been available to a given Viking Age blacksmith is certainly *unknown*. How exactly were starting metal bars sourced? Were there Norse master swordmakers who knew about the deep hearth methods hinted at by Tim Young's Dublin finds? I've seen it suggested that the pattern welding process (here meaning 'twisted composite core') was in fact a process developed to take mediocre metal and create acceptable quality blades (rather than best to exceptional).

All things to bear in mind. More questions than answers!

Others have mentioned 'munitions grade weapons. Something to always remember is the 'accident of preservation' factor with any artifact. This can turn back to something asked / commented on by others : Will our current work survive us?
So much of what we know of about the past is shaped by the high quality, the status pieces, the master works. Luck aside, good quality work is treasured and protected.

Who knows, maybe in a 25th Century world of light sabres and blasters, those 'antique' blades (made by named and then unknown artisans) will come to vogue as sought after rarities...

(*) But if you build an 'accurate' reconstruction, those same bellows have not proved effective in producing a volume of air in an *iron smelting furnace*. At least not to be able to produce a bloom that matches the size, shape and density of those (admittedly few) found as artifacts from the VA. I think there is a big mystery here, and this question has been driving my own experiments for the last couple of years.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

I had written a long spin off from Zeb's comment - which the Sprites of the Internet ate on me. (Maybe my own 'fault' for not composing this on a word program and then pasting the completed text to the board.) I got a bit defeated from loosing about two hours of work, and put off an entry for another day. This may be a blessing, as although the intent was good, the first content got bogged down into a lot of historic / technical stuff.

As this is a *bladesmithing* forum, I want to try to warp back towards some thoughts on cutting edges.

The very first things I forged out were knives. I (thankfully?) don't have images of most of those. Honestly, they were mostly pretty pathetic! The shapes were determined as much by the way I managed to butcher the steel with the hammer, as any prior intent to design. I still actually have one of my early pieces, about a 14 inch, very light weight double edge, forged from a large file.

I have always *forged* my blades. (I think there was one commission that was cut, drilled and ground - this a replica of a movie sword out stainless. A kind of silly design consisting of a long triangle shape with a long series of large diameter holes through the riccasso area.)

So this is the first dynamic for me : Creating blades has always been about the *forging process*, not the grinding and polishing.

I did drop away from blacksmithing for about five years in the early 1980's, mainly out of a lack of any kind of working equipment. (I was living in rented places in down town Toronto at that point.) I was doing a lot of costume jewelry at the time. Quite literally, as a good amount of it were things for SCA costumes. I was working as a casting technician at a dental lab. Both gave me at least the basics of fine metalworking. I did a large amount of standard 'Russel Green River' blades with etched patterns in this period. Regardless of all this, I really have never been that interested in the *embellishment* of knife handles.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Some apologies for the double posting - I'm having some connection problems. Direct
satellite uplink system here. Maybe early into the internet, but the
rest of the world caught up and passed us rural folk here in Ontario.This
reflects back on something a couple of you mentioned - about visibility
on the internet. Although I hardly am located in the 'back of beyond'
(two hours drive NW of Toronto), it is a good 14 hours drive from 'Smelt
Central' (Lee Sauder's in Lexington Virginia). The great strength of
the internet is it allows so many of us 'on the margins' to participate
directly with many scattered other people who we might otherwise never
personally meet. Glimpsing finished work through those carefully
selected (photoshoped?) images is never quite the same as holding a
blade in your own hands...

Part 2 - She said, He said...

As I hinted in the last entry, the standard interpretation of the available archaeology as published by AS Ingstad was this:
There was a major boat repair (number of rivets)
This was a single repair event (location of fragments)
Weight of needed rivets equals estimated iron production
Therefore - A major repair was needed, so the Norse 'simply' smelted the iron needed

This was the standard information communicated by Parks Canada at the site.
When
I first started working on the living history program there, I had a
number of (friendly, sometimes over drinks) discussions with Dr Wallace
about this.
My main discussion points / objections:
-
Leif Eirikson was a second generation, professional, expedition leader.
I just could not imagine that he would even remotely consider heading
out into the unknown without taking along a bag of boat repair rivets.
(Note that it is almost as far to sail from the Greenland settlement to LAM - as it is to sail back to Norway!)
-
The evidence points to only a small boat being repaired. (The width of
that 'garage' is less than 2 metres.) NOT a full sized, ocean going
'knarr' hull. Given the lack of building timber in Greenland, certainly
valuable - but not what is getting you home from Vinland.
-
How easy is it *really* to make iron? Was this general or specialized
knowledge and skill? Would the Norse realistically expect to be able to
smelt iron 'just anywhere'?
- What about the metal tools
required to effectively make iron? If you were stuck needing a ship
repair to get back home, would you not give up a sledge hammer (needed
for bloom compaction, weight 3 - 5 kg) to make an emergency supply of rivets?

Those last two points were always the critical ones for me.
Most
of you have noticed that the archaeologist's reports make a direct link
from the 'production' estimate of 3 kg with a known weight in discarded
rivets at 3 kg.

One question as a metalworker:
Might it not be a lot easier just to attempt to re-weld up those rivet pieces into some new source bars?
Now,
I certainly have never personally tried this kind of thing. The pieces
would certainly be heavily corroded, and that likely would really
complicate any attempt to do this. (Those reading who have welded up
cycle chains to billets might have observations?)

Clearly, the archaeologists missed entirely that a bloom is *not* a working bar.
Again,
I don't think there is any good published information on this process. I
certainly do not feel I have accumulated enough experience (much less
documentation in terms of measurements) to offer any solid numbers. I
think the best I have ever managed has been about a 20 % loss from bloom
to bar.* (I will hope that some of you who work extensively with bloom
iron will comment here!)
Any way you look at it, a 3 kg bloom does not equal 3 kg of finished rivets!

And just how good were those original Norse at the iron smelting process to begin with?
If you hold to the 3 kg bloom from that 18 kg of (good) ore - this is only a 17 % yield!
Not withstanding this is a small volume smelt and these usually produce lower yield numbers.

Honestly folks, when we undertook our demonstration smelt at LAM in 2010, I was kind of embarrassed by our own low return, at about 14%. (We got a fairly crumbly 2.8 kg bloom)
Mind
you - after Birgitta had watched the amount of labour (all human
powered air) and general rushing about (we had some burn through
problems with the furnace) on that demonstration, she told me she had
revised her opinions about just how 'simple' producing iron was for the
Norse. (for a more formal discussion of all this - go to my paper 'An Iron Smelt in Vinland - an experimental investigation')

I
have always felt the iron smelting process was a specialist task. The
general archaeology from the Viking Age places the iron smelting process
as physically removed from the community in general. It is *ore* which
is dictating the location of the production. Iron was (generally)
smelted at remote locations, then either transported as compressed cakes
or rendered down into fairly standard bars for sale to the actual
blacksmiths. (So standard that these are known as 'currency bars'.)
The
Norse are largely a society of reasonably isolated, large farmsteads.
It is common for each to have at least a separate 'smithy' building.
(Although how much and how often this might have been in operation is an
open question. A well rounded 'occasional amateur'? Seasonal use by an
intinerant professional smith?) The situation for iron smelting may be different in these locations.

But
increasingly during the Viking Age, there is the development of trade
based towns. (And this leads back to something you had mentioned Shel.)
Here craftsmen are working in combination workshop / residences.
Producing work for direct barter, or more and more, for sale against
silver coins. (Just where all that 'Danegeld' was going!) These working
blacksmiths are purchasing themselves the required raw materials for
their trades. In this case the charcoal fuel for the forge and the iron
working bars they need to produce objects.

So I guess that leads us (finally) back to the blacksmith - and bladesmith...

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

I have to wonder how Dr. Wallace altered her perceptions and whattriggered that that change in her thinking. I've found the relationshipbetwen smiths and archaeologists to be fruitful when both are openminded. Seems that way with you and the folks at L'Anse au Meadows.

Thanks
folks. This year has piled a lot of 'personal life' rocks on top of me,
and hopefully into 2014 I will be starting to crawl back out from them.

Something Alan said about the interface between the archaeologist and the blacksmith.

Part A - what we got:

The
original excavations at L'Anse aux Meadows, back in the 1960's, was a
real mess in terms of who was involved and how things were carried out.
Anne Stine Ingstad had been trained at university as an archaeologist,
but actually at the time of the find was not *working* as an
archaeologist. As word of the discovery got out, everyone
internationally remotely interested at the time tried to get into the
process. (I have seen film clips of 'ivory Tower' types, in suits, ties
and dress shoes, being physically carried from small boats to shore on
the backs of locals. At the time there was no road access to the site.)
At
the very least, no one actually undertaking the first series of
excavations had ever worked on a historic iron smelting site. At the
time, no one had really undertaken a successful re-creation of a
historic iron furnace either. (Near as I have been able to research, the
first steps into experimental archaeology there look to be in the mid
to late 1980's, and that pretty hit or miss as single attempts. Peter
Crew from the UK mounted an extensive series in the early to late
1990's. Our own Sauder and Williams follow in the mid to late 1990's -
but approaching from the 'working' direction.)
My friend (and
mentor) Dr Birgitta Wallace was working on the original excavations as a
graduate student. (So I have managed some inside information.)

One
of the base problems with archaeology is that it is a destructive
process. Typically you end up removing the very thing you are attempting
to study in the process of recording it. So when you combine that with a
group of people who don't know exactly what they are really looking at -
things get lost or missed. (I'm going to try to link over to a few images here - see it that works)

So this is what was recorded inside the Furnace Hut at LAM:

This
is the remains of a high temperature fire base, indicated by burned
charcoal. It is framed by several small stones and a partial ring of
baked clay. The ground around it is dotted with primary bog iron ore (to
the top right direction) and with small pieces of 'iron smelting slag' (mainly in a line towards the bottom).
The rough interior diameter of the fire base is 20 cm.
The clay crescent found is a mix of a local 'river' clay mixed with sand.
(And no, Lee, there is no indication in any of the reports just what
the mix might be.) There is a small clay bank exposed about 500 metres
from the Furnace Hut. (I do have a small pail of this stuff from our
2012 trip out there, but have not done anything with it yet.)

You
can clearly see that no actual structure of an iron smelting furnace
itself actually remains. What was the height? Location or type of
tuyere? Air system used?

The natural primary bog iron ore is under constant formation along
the bog that sweeps upwards from the sea shore location of the
occupation site, inland. Black Duck Brook cuts the bog, exposing beds of
this ore here and there. The samples of ore from the excavations are
quite rich in iron (range of 68 % Fe)

There was no differentiation made in the reports (or
notes) for different *kinds* of slags. The total amount of slags (all
kinds) recovered was "about 10 kg".
Now it is possible
(theoretically) to estimate the yield from an individual iron smelt. You
measure the various components of the starting ore. You measure the
components in the slag formed. There will be a drop in iron content from
the ore to the slag. You multiply the loss by the weight of slag = the
'missing' iron - so the bloom created.
First WAG : A loss factor of 5 kg was added to the amount of slag recovered (???) No actual slag bowl was recovered (The Furnace hut is about 10 feet from the edge of the brook - on the open side.)
Second
WAG : Based on the photos (not the best, admittedly) I have seen, there
was a quantity of both the green bubbly 'goo slag' as well as the later
black liquid (iron rich) tap slag recovered. Only the iron rich slag is
useful for the calculation. No separate record of the total amounts
appears to have been made.
Running the math gave a WAG x WAG x % estimate of 3 kg for the bloom produced.

The
most typical published estimate for the amount of ore used comes from
adding the slag recovered, plus that error addition, plus the estimated
bloom - to give an amount of 18 kg ore.

No specific consideration was made in any of the reports (confirmed by Birgitta Wallace) for the actual *bloom to bar* phase of the process. (At this point all fellow blacksmiths will be shaking their heads!)
It
has been my personal observation that the remains at LAM are most
likely the torn down base of the actual iron furnace, converted into a
kind of 'deep dish' forge for heating the bloom to compact it into a
working bar.
The 'actual bar to object' phase might not have
taken place in the Furnace Hut at all. One of the house buildings has a
fire that has traces of iron 'forge scale' around it.

At
least one iron object, a nail, was found to have the identical trace
element fingerprint as found on the bog ore from this location. This
indicates at least that one nail was made from iron produced at LAM.

Also recovered on the overall site:

One
of the three building complexes had a side room attached to the main
building (indicated by wall foundations). This was open on one end - the
end facing the natural beach (as it existed in 1000 AD). Imagine a
modern 'car port' on the side of your house. This room also had a side
door - opening off into the yard. Found in a spray shape from the
interior, fanning out from the door opening were about 100 fragments of
iron rivets and their associated rectangular roves (washers). These
rivets were used to hold together the planking of a small (to fit the
'garage') boat. This all most certainly represents a large single repair event. The total mass of the combined pieces was : 3 kg.

Monday, December 09, 2013

I was a bit surprised that I have been asked to contribute to a very good series underway over on Don Fogg's Bladesmith Forum.

The series is entitled 'Knifemaker Interviews'. The idea was started by Christopher Price. Some of the best known and respected names have been included. The method is that Christopher asked a selected bladesmith (it was Allan Longmire) :

How this works: I will start by inviting a member here to an interview,
where we'll discuss their history, views of the craft, their relevant
background, and what makes them tick. They, then, will interview someone
else, and so on as long as we have people willing to pour out their
hearts and metalworking souls online for this community to share in.

Individuals have given intensely personal observations on their work and purposes, on the Arts and sometimes world view in general. This is inspiring stuff!

I was extremely flattered to be asked by Sheldon Browder (retired master smith from Colonial Williamsburg and fellow member of the Early Iron Group) to take part :

Posted Today, 08:57 AM

Quote

Darrell, i think that Some discussion of your connection with Vikingiron making a t L' Anse au Meadows might be a good place to start.

A
fast start : I am especially honoured (and humbled) to be included in
such august company. There are a great many names here from who's hands I
have always seen spectacular work. (An awful lot of 'I wish *I* could
have made that one'!) Some have come to be friends over the years, much
to my surprise and gratification. I hope it proves I can add something
to this quite wonderful (and informative) ongoing conversation. At its best, this series reminds me a bit of an artist's round table at an extremely good conference...

To the Question:

You may personally find a curious circle here Sheldon.(Cautionary note : This is how I remember this - maybe not the truth of what it really might have been!)

Second Cautionary note : I am not known for short answers!

I
was working as the blacksmith / historic interpreter at Black Creek
Pioneer Village (Toronto Ontario) in the mid to late 1980's. This is one
of those synthetic historic villages, composed of buildings moved from
their original locations and restored to the dates of construction. The
span there is roughly 1816 - 1865. The blacksmith's shop was intended to
be some vague 1850's time period. Individual interpreters came into the
Village mostly self taught, and mostly spent their days working alone.
(There was no internal training program such as exists at Colonial
Williamsburg in Virginia.)

I had started my journey into
living history through a deep interest in the Viking Age. I had
literally fallen over the then fledgling Society for Creative
Anachronism group at University of Toronto while a student at Ontario
College of Art. (As many are sure to know, this is a very loosely
Medieval themed organization.) As I was a young male, armoured combat
(as it was developing in the SCA in those days) was something I was
enthusiastically involved in. If you wanted armour back then (late
1970's) you pretty much had to build your own. A need for something at
least vaguely approaching historic objects for costumes lead me to my
first knives. (How I picked up a hammer for forging a longer tale!)

So that (roughly) sets the scene.
In
general research, likely via the ALHFAM journal, I had seen an article
describing a project undertaken by a team at Colonial Williamsburg. The
name I * remember * is 'David Harvey'. (Shel, you might remember this -
or have even been involved?) Anway, the project was an attempt to
convert a local iron ore into a metallic mass. As I remember it, this
was done using a deep built forge hearth, firing charcoal. The results
were marginal, with enough metal produced to make a small chisel. (In
retrospect, this all sounds like the variation on the Aristotle Furnace
Tim Young had suggested to the Early Iron Group at Smeltfest a couple of
years back, you certainly remember. Lee Sauder and Jesus Hernandez both
took the lead on those experiments.)
Back to the thread - I had
been 'offended' by the statement made in the published article : 'This
process replicates the First Iron Production in North America.' Like all
Canadians, this kind of thing gets the maple syrup in my veins just a
boilin'. * We * all knew the very first iron produced in North America
was at the hands of the Norse, at 'Leif's Houses' (northern
Newfoundland) in Vinland - some time about 1000 AD.

So in the back of my head, as early as about 1990, was the idea of demonstrating the Viking Age iron smelting process.

Through
a long chain of events (including a huge amount of mindless self
promotion). I would develop a working relationship with Parks Canada,
the L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site (LAM), and Dr Birgitta
Wallace. This all over the 1990's, with many trips out to the site from
my home base in central Ontario. (For those not familiar, that's a two
and half day drive, an eight hour ferry, then another full day's drive.)

In
2001, Parks Canada received a corporate grant to re-create the small
'Furnace Hut' at LAM. The original was a roughly 3 x 3 metre structure,
open on one side, dug into the bank of the Black Duck Brook. It appears
to have been purpose built to contain a small clay walled iron smelting
furnace. The furnace was either broken on bloom extraction (my best
guess), or purposefully converted into a deep forge for the required
compaction phase. The archaeology suggests only a single firing, a
smaller furnace run with a fairly low yield. ( I can elaborate on all
that if people ask about it.) I was part of small research group,
intended to establish how best to equip the replica building and then
interpret the historic event to the public. Dr Wallace represented the
archaeological side. Archaeo-metallurgist Arne Esplund (from Norway) for
Norse iron smelting. I was the interpretive / practical side. The
working staff was represented by Mark Pilgram, one of the local people I
had trained on a special six week program in 2000.

As
part of the week long workshop, Marc and I, working from prototypes
provided by Birgitta and Arne, * attempted * to smelt iron. Attempted
being the key word here. As later experiments would prove, we did just
about every single thing wrong!

I got back from
that session determined to 'get this to work'. I wrangled (inspired /
dragged kicking and screaming) my new group of Viking Age living history
re-enactors, the Dark Ages Re-Creation Company (www.darkcompany.ca) into providing the required manpower.Starting in 2002,
we undertook a series of individual experimental iron smelts,
concentrating on Norse type 'short shaft' bloomery furnaces. Our first
attempts (also dismal failures) were using human powered Viking Age type
blacksmith's bellows.
In 2003, a small group of us attended a
demonstration by Lee and Skip Williams held at the American Museum of
Frontier Culture in Staunton Virginia. Generous as always, Lee and Skip
took us in and folded us into the demonstration. (Or at least let me
badly explain what was going on to the general public - while they
concentrated on the real work!) I certainly learned a huge amount that
day.Spring 2004
back at Wareham was another failure, but did gain us the friendship of
Mike McCarthy. (Mike stopped by on his way back from a week with one of
the Japanese iron masters.)Fall of 2004
and a combination of pissy wet and cold weather, too late a start, beer
for very late lunch - and a general WtF attitude... We not only
stumbled on a easy and quick to build brick furnace design (what came to
be known as the 'Econo-Norse') - we actually got iron!

By
that point (what was my 5th / 6th iron smelt) I had realized that I had
to pull back to basic principles. That *first* I had to learn how to
effectively smelt iron, developing some standard methods and some kind
of effective methods and base level understanding of the processes.
*Then*
go back and attempt to remove individual modern elements, one by one,
to work backwards towards a possible Viking Age method.

The
direct process of this was a series of five experimental smelts DARC
undertook from 2009 through 2010. This ended with a full scale
re-creation of the historic smelt at Vinland,
inside that same replica building at LAM. This public demonstration was
undertaken using all Viking Age equipment (save modern safety gear).
The end result was about the same as the archaeologists had estimated
for the original event. About 20 kg of ore was converted to a roughly 3
kg iron bloom.
Dr Wallace was present for the demonstration, and
confided to me after that she felt she would have to alter her earlier
impressions of both Norse iron smelting, and more significantly, just
what that ancient undertaking was really intended for. (I had always had
big reservations about how the archaeologists had interpreted the
artifact evidence - and its implications.)

I'm still
wondering about the implications of air flow inside Norse type short
shaft bloomery furnaces. More experiments to follow for sure. My team
has also been working on a related system from Viking Age Iceland, working closely with Kevin Smith (Brown University).

The hard core knife makers here may notice this is straying a very far distance from bladesmithing.
Something Lee said once : 'You should kill what you eat'
The
materials available to ancient blacksmiths are quite different compared
to our modern metals. Further, how those materials were created in
themselves alters the relationship ancient smiths had to their
materials.
I will hardly claim to have that all figured out. But
using historic methods to produce the source materials does alter my
perceptions of the object itself...

Thursday, November 28, 2013

This is a series of images I took in August of 2013.
Between Goderich and Summerfolk, I managed a couple of days at a private camp ground just north of Durham, Ontario.
Although the camp ground itself was nothing special (although it was tree covered, so a little more broken up than most private campgrounds), there was a very enjoyable nature trail back to a small lake that had a waterfall / dam.

Here are some images I took on that walk:

I'm a bit curious what my friend Grondzilla might say (?)

Photography was the only studio course I took each of my four years at Ontario College of Art. These days I try to make the best images I can, the only real use for these kind of 'art shots' is as screen savers...

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

... I have known Jeff Pringle for quite a while ... Jeff and I started tossing the phrase back and forth,
"the price of knowledge." It might apply to any sacrifice one had to
make in order to learn something. Usually it's our time, or the price
of rare books, or the cost of a bribe to get a more experienced smith to
open up a little more about closely-held information.

At this year's Axe-n Sax-In, we used the phrase liberally, and many
got to hear it for the first time. During Jeff's excellent presentation
of his original artifacts, there was a brief nod to the work I was
starting to undergo with an Axe I'd bought back in 2009, and I've just
recently decided to pay the price to know more about it.

Regular readers here are certain to find Chris's full posting of interest. He describes in some detail his observations of this artifact axe. Most specifically how the patterns of the metal both give insight to not only the construction techniques, but also hints as to how the original bloomery source metal was used.

Readers who are wondering why there have been few posts here of late :

I have had to deal with a succession of family emergencies over the last month. These have kept me either extremely busy - or on the road to Peterborough. Combined with my recent teaching trip to the USA in October, it has been almost six weeks where I have been away from Wareham far more than I have been present. My hope is that things might return to 'normal' around here soon!

Monday, November 11, 2013

"Year after year, more old men disappear,Soon no onewill march thereat all..."

from 'the Band Played Waltzing Matilda' written by Eric Bogle •

I had made this tune the centre of my annual Remembrance Day piece in 2008.

Despite the fact that my own military service was short (1972 - 76) and limited (Canadian Forces Reserves), it had a major impact on my development into an adult. It framed much of my attitudes and methods. I was trained by (slightly) older men, a number of who had fought in Viet Nam. Lessons learned in that cauldron were passed to me, and that place and those times are in large part what shaped me to the man I would become.
In the years following I would meet a large number of people (many Americans, but not exclusively) who were reflections of that shattered mirror of the late 1960's and early 1970's. A man who said he was the second soldier to set foot into My Lia (and yes, on that infamous day). A woman who was so opposed to the War she got a job in a munitions factory, then deliberately passed defective mortar round fuses she inspected. Canadians that enlisted 'for the adventure'. Good friends who had fled to Canada to dodge the Draft.

But this piece, rambling as it most likely is going to be, is not about me, save perhaps as an introduction to the observer.

Catherine wrote: "Not for that war - but there are Vets being created all the time. Funny how we never learn to treat them with respect..."

And Catherine is of course absolutely correct.

I had pondered last year about lessons not learned. We cry 'Never Again'.
Then fat men in tall hats thump their chests, speaking about bravery and sacrifice - then send another generation of young men into the meat grinder. Afterwards they discard the shattered remains, shedding even their own limited responsibility for what they have set into motion. (see Rick Mercer's commentary ).

We act as if *peace* is the natural order of our world. It is most certainly not the truth. Is this because we, here in North America, have never endured the bombing of out homes and schools?
Look at the actual progress of the 20th Century : World War 1, World War 2, Korea, Viet Nam, Gulf One, Gulf Two, Afghanistan. (and those just the 'majors' - add all the minor 'police actions' and 'bush wars' and 'peace keeping', and, and ...)The civilians may think there have been periods of peace - the soldiers certainly know * personally * this is not the case.

So Catherine, you are exactly correct. There will always be '... men (to) answer the call'.

* * *

Things around Remembrance Day this year, that I liked, and that I hated.

Liked:

Image from the UK Daily Mail

Haunting reminder of millions of lives lost in war as artists stencil 9,000 bodies onto Normandy beach to mark Peace Day
• British led project covered the famous coastline in poignant silhouettes
• A team of 500 artists and volunteers contributed the moving installation
• The 'fallen' were left to be washed away by the tide at the end of the day

And significantly, this work lets the *viewer* make up their own mind.

Hated:

The White Poppy * symbolizes the belief that there are better ways to resolve conflicts than killing strangers. Our work, primarily educational, draws attention to many of our social values and habits which make continuing violence a likely outcome.

The symbolic RED Poppy has been used in Canada for my entire life, as a symbol of *sacrifice * and *remembrance*. It has NEVER been considered as a symbol of *war*, save in the most negative of contexts. 'Never Again' is the most commonly heard phrase.

The remembrance poppy (a Papaver rhoeas) has been used since 1920 to commemorate soldiers who have died in war. Inspired by the World War I poem "In Flanders Fields", they were first used by the American Legion to commemorate American soldiers who died in that war (1914–1918). They were then adopted by military veterans' groups in some Commonwealth states: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Today, they are mainly used in the UK and Canada to commemorate their servicemen and -women who have been killed in all conflicts since 1914.

Curiously enough, the White Poppy symbol has a considerable history, dating back to the period just before the outbreak of World War Two :

After World War I the Co-operative Women's Guild became more involved in peace activism, concentrating especially on the social and political conditions that encouraged or gave rise to war, as well as opposition to the arms trade. In 1933 they introduced the White Poppy as a pacifist alternative to the British Legion's annual red poppy appeal.

It might be useful to remember there was an extremely strong anti War movement in Great Britan right about the time of this first use of the white poppy symbol. This despite the massive arming up of Germany, the emergence of Hitler, the start of the Nazi Party at the very same time. 'Peace in Our Time' ring any bells?

The entire modern campaign *, pushed strongly via social networking, completely misses the purpose of Remembrance Day as it is 'marked' in Canada and elsewhere.

Ask any serving or ex military member what this day means to them.
Sadness
Loss
often Betrayal
almost always the feeling of complete lack of Understanding from civilians

We will be seen, huddled in corners in small groups, often alone. Raising a glass in silent toast.
Never to War
Always to Absent Friends

* Of course you can *buy these on line* from the 'Peace Pledge Union' (at http://www.ppu.org.uk/ppushop/) Cost (with UK shipping) is GPB 7 for five = $2.40 CDN each. No mention of where the money goes. ('Nuff Said?)

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

My friend and fellow experimental archaeology enthusiast (crazy) Neil Peterson and I are departing early tomorrow for a two week plus trip to the USA:

The adventure starts with a stop at West Liberty University, West Liberty, West Virginia. Dr Darrin Cox (kindly!) describes the program we will be presenting :

“Darrell Markewitz and Neil Peterson are scholars of experimental
archeology from Canada. They will practice their ancient professions all
day long, just outside the rear entrance to the Media Arts Center.
Students will be able to observe the actual work involved in these
professions that date back to the time of the Vikings and a number of
observers will also get to make their own glass beads and work with
wrought iron,”

Neil demonstrating the Viking Age bead furnace - Goderich 2012

We will be conducting demonstration / workshop sessions on campus for students. That evening (Thursday October 17) we will be giving a pair of short lectures :

'the Artist Blacksmith - a view from the workshop' (Darrell)

'Experimental Archaeology - Viking Age Glass Bead Making' (Neil)

As far as I know - these are open to the general public, but you would have to contact the campus for details.

Starting Friday Oct 18 - to Sunday Oct 20, we both will be participating in the 4th Reconstructive and Experimental Archaeology Conference (ReARC) at the Schiele Museum of Natural History, Gastonia North Carolina.
Besides generally hanging about, we both will be giving presentations at the conference Saturday :

09:20 – 09:40

Title: Making Yours One of the "Good" Presentations”

Author: Peterson, Neil, Wilfrid
Laurier University, Ontario, Canada

Abstract: We've all been to bad
lectures or presentations in the past and we don't want to be one of those. Do
you know how to avoid that? In many ways
the medium becomes your message. No how
matter how good your material is, if the presentation is poorly done your
audience will tune out. Presenting a
paper has many advantages over other presentations, not the least because the
content is well known to you. Papers,
however, regularly show a standard set of problems that are easily avoided. In
this session Neil will review the 'do' and 'don't' items for presenting, basics
of how to create a presentation, powerpoint ideas, and many other things you
need to know to make yourself a better presenter. Based in part on the
excellent book 'Presenting to Win', in part on many years lecturing at
Universities, Museums, and conferences around North America, and in part on
many years presenting in a corporate environment, this session will help you
make your presentations more interesting, and memorable.

2:50 - 5:00

Forging
the Viking Age

Presenter:
Markewitz, Darrell, Wareham Forge, Ontario, Canada

Description:
Scandinavian culture was known for the quality of its metalwork, especially in
iron. Just how did the tools available effect the creation of the object? Is
there an effect from the qualities of the metals available themselves? Join
artist blacksmith and Viking Age specialist Darrell Markewitz for this
combination demonstration and hands workshop session. A reconstructed 'sand
table' charcoal forge, along with replicas of Norse blacksmithing tools, will
be used. Those wishing to participate need to be dressed in natural fibre, long
pants and work boots (jeans and T shirt ideal).

PS - this is both an amazing small conference, but also a great deal (at only $50 at the door - $40 for students).

After ReARC, we are then travelling up to Washington College, Chestertown Maryland. There, at the request of Dr. Bill Schlinder, we are undertaking a modified version of the 'Archaeology and Experiment' workshop program. For this program, we will be including sessions under Neil's guidance, building and working with the VA bead furnaces, as well as mounting a complete bloomery iron smelt.

Extracting the bloom - Bristol RI - 2011

As well as lectures to the students, we will be providing one open public lecture session, Wednesday October 23:

Norse America – what REALLY
happened?

This will be a pretty free wheeling discussion around Vinland in the Viking Age. Darrell will be looking at the truth of L'Anse aux Meadows, Neil will be considering some of our 'favourite' fakes and forgeries.

Again, you would have to look to the campus web site for exact location and time (evening).

If that was not enough, we are going to take advantage of the proximity to hang out with Bruce Blackistone, Fred Blonder and our (extended) friends of the Longship Company.
It turns out their replica ship the Sae Hrafn docks off the north Chesapeake, a mere two hours from Washington College! Plans are to spend a couple of days on the water. Bill Short and his companions from Hurstwic are planning on travelling down for the gathering as well.

Those interested in the Viking Age, Iron Smelting, Glass Bead Production, Experimental Archaeology, ... are welcome to check for the public presentations and come out to meet us!

Oh - and if that is not *enough*, Neil figures we are 'more or less' driving up past the Corning Glass Museum in New York on our way back to Ontario. So we have juggled our travel and stops to allow us at least a few hours there (Neil has never seen it) on the way home Monday October 28.

Sunday, October 06, 2013

For those readers who have been wondering where the Viking Age has gone...

Working the Sand Table Forge - Haffenreffer Museum (RI).

From an archaeological stand point, this specific piece of equipment is quite speculative. All the actual illustrations we have of blacksmiths
from the Early Middle Ages show the smith working standing upright - and
typically with raised forge fires. In contrast, most of the actual archaeology I have seen suggests use of ground set forge bases.
This presents a problem for the working blacksmith.
Standing allows for the production of the greatest amount of physical
power through the use of not only arms, but upper torso and even lower
back and upper leg muscles. An anvil set at 'proper' working height
(face at roughly 30 inches, varied by body size) is easy to achieve by
altering the length of a timber block to set it the anvil on. Combining
this with a ground fire is extremely taxing for the worker, who then
must stand directly on top of the forge fire while heating the metal
being worked. (As I know from personal experience, this is extremely
punishing!).
Other possibilities are to work 'hunkered' (squatting), kneeling, even
sitting. The closer to the ground the smith positions the body, the less
physical power can be developed to drive the hammer. In fairness, it
should be remembered that working traditions in other areas of the world
often have the smith working hunkered (Indo-China) or sitting (Japan).

The bones would certainly tell of course.
As far as I know, or have been able to tell, no direct observations of
indicated blacksmith's remains (tools in burials) has ever been made.

One of the advantages of the admittedly speculative Sand Table Forge is
that the plans are for a piece of equipment that easily packs down into a
container of sand and two flat surfaces.

I have not published a direct set of plans for the Norse style twin
chamber bellows. Those interested in that should just use the search
function of the blog. There are easily a dozen separate articles dealing
with Viking Age bellows and construction. Scattered around are a number
of photographs of a well proven design, that uses a 1/2 square checked
piece of cloth as the background (allowing scale).

These two illustrations comprise the basic handout I have prepared for my upcoming trip to the USA in later October.

At West Liberty University (West Virginia) I will be undertaking a day long workshop session with a combined group of archaeology and visual arts students.

Thursday, October 03, 2013

Forge
Ahead Ornamental Iron
in Guelph, ON. This is an excellent opportunity for one or more Smiths to step
into a successful shop with an exceptional reputation for quality workmanship
and customer service.

There are a
couple of options for selling the company and we are open to discussion regarding;

I have seen the operation at Forge Ahead, and at least briefly met Jim and Lynn.

This is certainly a very unexpected and unfortunate turn for them both - as a couple they were active, focused, and in my observation, both skilled and well organized.

Their current operational site is fairly large, and would require a good volume of business to support - with the work (and costs) that this implies. The shop is located in a rented facility in the NE corner of Guelph.

This may represent a good opportunity for an already established and skilled working blacksmith to 'move up' to a larger operation...

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

One of the few artifact pieces I have in my collection is an early French trade axe, a 'Biscayne' type:

Artifact measurements - in mm

I bought this piece at an auction near Angus Ontario, quite a few years back. The original owner had told me he had dug it up on his property there. He had spray painted the thing gold, and had a loop of wire (thankfully no hole!) to hang it on the wall.
I had recognized an early, blacksmith made axe - and not much more. Back at my shop, I had thoughts of re-conditioning it. I ran it up to forge heat to burn off the paint, then gave it a heavy hand wire brushing to lift off the surface corrosion. After cooling, I started to clean up the edge on the bench grinder. (Sorry!) As I reduced the edge, I found a massive flaw in the edge weld, a piece roughly the size of a quarter with visible fire scale inside the crack. At that point I realized I had a great commentary piece on historic blacksmithing work. 'See - not everything was made by masters - and they screwed up too.'

On a fast internet search this morning in preparation to this article, I was a bit surprised to find the following :

" The Biscayne trade axes are the oldest style of metal axe we know of traded in North America. The
eye pattern has a distinctive ovate egg shape..."

" Records
show Biscay hatchets being traded to American Indians by the Spanish as
early as 1520's - 1540's;
the French from about 1560-1750's; and the
British from 1674 -1690's? which were copies of the French ones but were
recorded
as imports by the blacksmith Samuel Banner
from England. "

" The
Hudson's Bay Company began literally copying the French biscay trade
axes in 1674 ...
How
long the English copied the French made axes
is not known but there is no mention of it past the 17th C....

The French made Biscay style trade axes from at least the 1530's-and
tapering off until the last known reference to them was 1758. "

The artifact I have is heavily pock marked with corrosion. There is no obvious makers mark I can distinguish on either face. Given that and the find location, it may be hard to date the axe accurately. Angus is within the north to south line of the Nottawasaga Valley, putting it directly south of Collingwood / Georgian Bay. This is potentially one of the routes possible to the French mission at Saint Marie Among the Hurons to the north (1639 - 49). Most certainly with the later expansion of the English into what became Upper Canada, there was a continuing European presence in this area to modern Canada.Some images of the original artifact - along with the piece I have been working on the last couple of days based on it (both images expand to roughly life size, the artifact is on the top) :

Side 'face' view

Bottom surface view

Along with the massive welding flaw on the actual cutting edge I mentioned, you can see that there is a serious flaw in the weld along the bottom side. This would drastically impact on the axe's ability to be correctly fitted to - and remain attached on - a working handle. Together I get the impression of 'junk for the natives' - low quality work, produced as quickly and cheaply as possible!Note : The replica version I am working on is only at the 'rough forged' stage at the point of those images!

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Ontario Arts Council

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Ontario Arts Council

February - May 2012 : 'Bloom to Bar' Project Grant

February 15 - May 15, 2012 : Supported by a Crafts Projects - Creation and Development Grant

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